brummie

The Everton fans would love it if you took Beattie off them, he just has not produced. He looked clueless against us at the weekend. Incidentally, good point whoever mentioned the example of Chris Sutton, he is looking like an absolutely quality stop-gap signing. Hartson is fat and not doing it at West Brom. Someone mentioned Kevin Phillips. He'd be another one worth considering. Although, would the former mackem thing be an issue? he's got the right attitude in terms of being a true "pro".

Possibly not by then, but at some point, yes. I don't subscribe to this "too big to go down" line which is rubbish, but I genuinely do not think you will go down.

The trouble is Marcus seems as goal shy as our lot. We might as well go for Jason Euell. I doubt Charlton'll let Darren Bent go full stop, although if they did it would improve their chances of getting relegated, which benefits us. It'd take a big pile of cash, but I think given our current predicament it'd well spent. Like Darren Bent would leave Charlton to come here, if we are still close to the bottom come Jan then forget it, he may leave Charlton but it wont be to come here. True but we can offer him rolls royce wages :winking: Aye we can but I think if he was after massive wages he would not be at Charlton now. Charlton are very unlikely to let him go, given that they are in a relegation scrap, and certainly not to Newcastle, who (at the moment, but probably not in January) who are amongst the teams scrapping with them. It is hard to do anything in the January window, struggling teams need to hold on to their best players, teams doing well want to keep on doing well.

Bad move, I think. Given that he's replaced a manager who was there for over a decade, 12 games is nowhere near enough time, it is going to take much longer than that to get the playing side going his way rather than Curbishley's. They'll come to regret that.

In any Shepherd - Ellis comparison, you've also got to consider that in 1968 when he first became chairman, Ellis saved the club from near certain oblivion, when it was a relic still living in the 1930s, teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, and dragged it screaming and kicking into modern football. Too late to stop the slide to the Third division, but in that 68-75 period, we got to Wembley twice, and won the league cup. Ellis also made the best managerial appointment the club has ever made in appointing Ron Saunders, and strictly speaking, made the appointment of MON, who could turn out to be an even better appointment. You're right about the European Champions to relegation in five years, that was unforgiveable and I suspect driven by personal spite, I doubt any other chairman, no matter how bad, would manage that.

Good point, I had forgotten about the Everton new stadium thing. However, aren't Liverpool hugely in debt and also having to find the new stadium money (obv, a much better brand than Everton, though)? Villa Park's oldest stand (where we put away fans) was built in 77 and is getting rebuilt soon, the rest of the ground has been rebuilt since the late 80s, early 90s anyway (including the butchery of the beautiful old Trinity Road stand, one of Doug's worst crimes). What is frightening is just how wealthy "rich" investors in football need to be these days. Are any of the people mentioned at the top of this thread actually rich enough?

i don't think lerner at villa is a massive villa fan and buisness wise we are better prospects than them.wonder why he bothered? .as talks go on in brussels about the future of selling the premier league on tv,the more likely a takeover or a fat fred led buy out.buisness wise in england we are the best option outside arsenal,chelsea,liverpool,man utd. I don't want to get into a "my dad is bigger than yours" argument, but stuff like "business wise we are better prospects than them" is easy to say, yet actual events don't seem to back it up. He got Villa cheaply, from a man who was in a hurry to sell as he's clearly going to be involved in the serious business of dying rather soon, with an agreement clearly in place to appoint the best available manager in the country, with the club having minimal amounts of debt and having been - and it near kills me to say this - run financially sensibly over a long period. a club with a history which is matched by few other clubs, with enormous potential which has gone untapped for decades now, with assets in terms of a squad of players which is actually much better than many people thought, and clearly underperformed massively last year . All this for 64 million pounds, which is peanuts. Currently, his investment (into which he has thus far been able to invest zero in terms of player acquisitions) is 4th in the Premiership. From a business point of view, I'd say that looks like a pretty good investment. Good business isn't just about what you get in terms of turnover, it is far, far more complex than that. As for the "best option outside ..." point, I'd disagree with that. What about Everton, for a start? Available at around 40 million, so they reckon. Not too much wrong with the playing side of things there, and that's 40 percent of what Newcastle would cost.

If Arsenal play well on saturday i fear a 5-0 or 6-0 defeat I honestly do blueno.gif When they're on-song, they play far and away the best football in the league, and can be truly frightening. I'd much rather they win the league than Chelsea, purely for the football style. They've also just gone into 3rd. Bollocks.

Upson is a real quality player, who is sadly wasted playing at that vile club.

Spot on. He's 20 years old, people forget this.

Ha ha ha, as if. You can have Aaron Hughes back, though, and we won't want anything in return. I think MON will actually have bigger fish to fry than Milner in January, though, now the financial options are somewhat more positive.

I can only think the problem with Milner is a knock-on effect of the low confidence in the team as a whole. That or the effect of the transfer deadline day badness. He was absolutely excellent for us last season, our best player by a mile, he's young and highly promising and will only get better. Duff is a quality player, too. These aren't players who have suddenly got shit, they're players who are playing badly and not being motivated by the manager to do any better. Getting shot of the players isn't the answer (much as I'd like Milner back), getting shot of the manager is.

Rafa Benitez was actually sacked 3 times (by Real Valladolid, Osasuna, and Extremadura) before he took over at Tenerife which was his staging post to the Valencia job. Paul Jewell was sacked by Sheffield Wednesday before coming back with Wigan. I don't think for a moment Le Guen is a bad manager because he's having a hard time at Rangers at the moment.

? The ref is Mark Halsey. And there have been no red cards in that game. And as far as Poll is concerned, he's already in Chelsea's good books as far as Villa are concerned after failing to penalise Makelele for tackling Angel around the neck when he was through on goal in the league fixture. I understand Poll actually trains at Chelsea's training ground.

I understand why you're so anti, obviously, but I think you're being more than a tad harsh. Don't get me wrong, I hate the red nosed cunt as well, but you can't really argue with his achievements, even if some of his transfer moves in recent years have been highly questionable. You're cock on about the European Cup win, mind, flukiest ever.

That'd be the worst option. You need someone who can turn things around NOW, immediately, so it has to be someone with Premiership experience, you can't take the chance of a foreign manager who'll need more time to "bed in". For my money there are two managers in the Premiership who clearly have this ability, on is O'Neill (which clearly isnt going to happen), the other is Sam Allardyce. But would Big Sam leave Bolton with them doing so well at the moment? I think Curbs is an excellent manager, but I don't know if he is the type to motivate enough to turn things around quickly.

You won't go down. You've got a decent midfield, but to say you've got "one of the best midfields" is something not a lot of people out of the north east would agree with, tbh. Have you seen Watford play this season? One look at them will give you a good indication of why you won't go down.

You are all being incredibly pessimistic. Yep, you're playing badly at the moment, and NO CLUB is "too big" to go down, but to say you're going down when it is the start of November is mad.

Tickets in Italy are still miles cheaper than here. I used to watch Milan a lot (albeit 6 or 7 years ago) and usually paid less than a tenner to get in, and even now you can get in the first or second "ring" of San Siro for 20 quid or less, and their cheapest tickets are 11 euros. You're right about the Delle Alpi has to be seen to be believed, it is a dreadful place to watch games. Juve played a friendly at the San Siro (not against Milan or Inter) when i lived there, and got 85,000. Most strange. Best place to watch football over there, for me, was Naples, especially against a northern team. Absolute headcases

It is doing the job thus far *sleeps like a contented baby*

Tsk, Vassell is all fart and no shit, which is precisely why we sold him to you. He'll never be anything more than entirely average. EDIT Oh no, I've just found myself agreeing with something the previous regime did. Monday 31st October, 2005. Manchester City 3-1 Aston Villa. Vassell 2 Tuesday 14th March, 2006. Manchester City 2-1 Aston Villa. Vassell 1. Tuesday 25th April, 2005. Aston Villa 0-1 Manchester City. Vassell. Not bitter or anything? bluebiggrin.gif Doesn't compute. The O'Leary era never happened. Nor did Ellis.

Anyone who listens to that shite needs their head examined. Talk Sport basically exists purely to promote southern, and mainly London, clubs above all else. They are, for example, the worst purveyors of that ridiculous "West Ham, academy of football" line of bullshit. They see Spurs as some kind of underachieving Real Madrid. Rodney Marsh and Alan Brazil are two of the biggest knobs in sport today. Marsh for believing that the country ends at Watford, Brazil for thinking that he is some kind of Pele figure of the world game. And he's got a major, major issue with the fact that Villa won the league in 81, not Ipswich, but that won't bother you. Shit radio station, staffed by idiots, and listened to by morons.

Tsk, Vassell is all fart and no shit, which is precisely why we sold him to you. He'll never be anything more than entirely average. EDIT Oh no, I've just found myself agreeing with something the previous regime did.

Martins is a bad signing - not because he's a bad player, but because he's not 10m worth of player. I used to live in Milan, and my Inter supporting mates could not believe they got that much for him. However, you've got him, so you've got to give him a chance. Duff, on the other hand, is a quality signing for that money. He'll come good. He's playing in a struggling side at the moment, of course he looks poor, but when things start improving, he'll look like the quality player he is.

"They want to open a casino!!!!!!" = the standard bullshit line used to discredit anyone in the takeover of a club these days - used against Lerner and now in the Newcastle situation. Totally ignores the facts that 1. You can't open a casino where you want, 2. The supercasino bidding process is all but over, and 3. You don't need to spend 100m on a football club to open a casino. When you hear that sort of blanket "throw enough shit, some of it will stick" stuff, you know someone is starting to get worried.